Grove House, Hampstead

Completed in 2005, this single family home was substantially refurbished and remodelled. The building was originally an old school house, so Curtis Wood tried to retain some essence of this through the design scheme, layering the building’s history through the design solution.

Curtis Wood Architects were initially appointed to undertake a reworking of a project the client had developed with another architect, which been priced at three times the original budget. With some significant changes to the design and specification, the design scheme came back within budget; though importantly, a sense of the original scheme was retained.

The proposal accommodated a large dining and living room on the ground floor, with a courtyard and open plan kitchen space. The ground floor design sought to make the courtyard ‘a room’ directly connected to the interior spaces. This is reinforced through floor finishes, lighting and large glass panels and doors. The kitchen units pass through the glass into the courtyard to strengthen the connection between courtyard and kitchen and to also provide an outside BBQ space. The upper floors accommodated the 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms and 2 private roof terraces.

Grove Place, Hampstead was featured by Grand Designs Magazine in January 2009 as an exemplar project, making the most of a tight budget in tough economic times.